THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE. Think of the sea's dread monotone, Of the mournful wail from the pinewood blown, Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the North, Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth, And the dismal tales the Indian told. Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew cold, And he shrank from the tawny wizard's boasts, And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts, And above, below, and on every side, The fear of his creed seemed verified; And think, if his lot were now thine own, ; To grope with terrors nor named nor known, How laxer muscle and weaker nerve And a feebler faith thy need might serve; And own to thyself the wonder more 'That the snake had two heads, and not a score ! Whether he lurked in the Oldtown fen Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Or swam in the wooded Artichoke, Nothing on record is left to show: And the two, of course, could never agree, Butwriggled about with main and might, near! Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear! Think what ancient gossips might say, Shaking their heads in their dreary way, Between the meetings on Sabbathday! 279 How urchins, searching at day's decline The Common Pasture for sheep or kine, The terrible double-ganger heard By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day, Thanked the snake for the fond delay! THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY. WHEN the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late, Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer-morn, Broad meadows reached out seaward the tided creeks between, Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led, All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land-breeze died, Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock, and wood, and sand: And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land. And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore: "Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on before To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more." All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside, There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair, From his struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast, There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause of wave and wind: "In this night of death I challenge the promise of thy word!-Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard!Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our "In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin, And let me follow up to thee my household and my kin! Open the sea-gate of thy heaven, and let me enter in!" Lord! |